Wednesday, 31 October 2007

shallow post about a fundamental issue in branding and the digital age

My respect for this guy is growing, although I am sure he doesn't need it.

He wrote an article in last week's campaign magazine which I think illustrates a very interesting point about advertising and branding in this 'digital age'. (and for the love of God, I can not find the article anywhere online).

In short, it is about two Unilever brands, Axe and Dove, which stand for two radically opposite concepts of beauty. Axe stands for seduction (i.e. the more you spray, the more you'll get laid), Dove stands for real beauty (i.e. real beauty is within, and every woman is beautiful).

The point made in the article is that consumers are beginning to raise legitimate questions about Unilever's integrity, as a parent company. Thanks to the internet they are able to voice their question: where does Unilever stand in terms of beauty?

For me, the interesting thought is that whilst agencies and brand owners are trying to figure out how to exploit the digital medium from an advertising perspective, consumers are one step ahead, and they are using the digital technology to ask more fundamental questions about branding and business models. How will Unilever react?

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UPDATE 01/11: Russell kindly posted the article in comments: http://russelldavies.typepad.com/advertising_practitioner/2007/10/dove-lynx-incon.html have a read.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hello Fran,

That's very kind of you, thanks. I stuck the article up here if you're still looking for it (I went with a different headline from Campaign)

http://russelldavies.typepad.com/advertising_practitioner/2007/10/dove-lynx-incon.html

fran said...

thanks for your comment and for the article!